The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi eBook

If the adult spirit has led a good life, it goes to
the abode where the ancestral spirits feast and hold
ceremonies as on earth, but if evil it must be tried
by fire and, if too bad for purification, it is destroyed.

XI. STORIES TOLD TODAY

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Fewkes, Stephen, Mindeleff, Voth, and others have
collected the more important tales of migrations and
the major myths underlying both religion and social
organization among the Hopi. One gets substantially
the same versions today from the oldest story-tellers.
These are the stories that never grow old; in the
kiva and at the fireside they live on, for these are
the vital things on which Hopi life is built.

However, there is a lighter side, of which we have
heard less, to this unwritten literature of the Hopi
people. These are the stories for entertainment,
so dear to the hearts of young and old alike.
Even these stories are old, some of them handed down
for generations. And they range from the historical
tale, the love story, and the tale of adventure to
the bugaboo story and the fable. Space permits
only a few stories here.

No writing of these can equal the art of the Hopi
story-teller, for the story is told with animation
and with the zest that may inspire the narrator who
looks into the faces of eager listeners.

The Hopi story-teller more or less dramatizes his
story, often breaking into song or a few dance steps
or mimicking his characters in voice and facial expression.
Sometimes the writer has been so intrigued with the
performance she could scarcely wait for her interpreter
(See Figure 13) to let her into the secret. Often
the neighbors gathered round to hear the story, young
and old alike, and they are good listeners. All
of these stories save one, that of Don, of Oraibi,
were told in the Hopi language, but having a Hopi
friend as an interpreter has preserved, we think,
the native flavor of the stories.

The first story, as told by Sackongsie, of Bacabi,
is a legend concerning the adventure of the son of
the chief of Huckovi, a prehistoric Hopi village whose
ruins are pointed out on Third Mesa. The writer
has since heard other variants of this story.

=An Ancient Feud,= as told by Sackongsie

“This is a story of the people that used to
live on Wind Mountain. There is only a ruin there
now, but there used to be a big village called Huckovi;
that means wind on top of the mountain. These
people finally left this country and went far away
west. We have heard that they went to California,
and the Mission Indians themselves claim they are from
this place.

“These people used to have ladder dances; that
is an old kind of a dance that nobody has now.
But we are told that a long time ago these people
brought trees from far away and set them up in round
holes made on purpose in the rock along the very edge
of the mesa.